


Ten Years

by WriterofGotham



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Introspection, Robin - Freeform, tim drake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterofGotham/pseuds/WriterofGotham
Summary: Tim finds a letter he wrote himself years ago.





	Ten Years

Tim pulled up the letter he’d written as a school project ten years ago. He had forgotten about it until he found it. 

Life was different then he was eight, and still believed that heroes were infallible. Time and experience taught him that heroes could fall and could make wrong decisions. He knew that he’d made his share. He sighed as he brought the letter from the shoe box that he’d kept special objects that he’d kept from his childhood. All the other kids in his class hadn’t known what to write but, he remembered that he thought he knew what he wanted. He had written the letter for an optimistic future, one that he’d never experienced.

Tim carefully unfolded the letter that he’d written for himself almost a lifetime ago. He skimmed over the words as it sunk in how much he changed. 

“Dear Future Timothy J. Drake,  
I have to write a letter to you, to open on our eighteenth birthday. A whole decade will have passed before you read this. You will be so cool, I think that we could talk Mom and Dad into buying us a Motorcycle. Mom probably won’t like a Motorcycle, promise to be safe. 

Do you think we’ll have met Batman and Robin yet? I think that would be awesome. Heroes are perfect they save people and they kick butt. I’m sure that we’re going to help people working at Drake Industries. We should go to college before working at the company. I can’t wait to grow up! 

Being little limits so much. I have so many ideas, but I’m a kid right now so nobody listens. You must have so many good ideas that people have to listen to because you’re an adult. That’s going to be awesome. 

I wish that you could tell me all about my awesome life. I bet we have a girlfriend and accepted into collage that we want. I know Mother and Father want that, it sounds like a good plan. I hope that we have pleased them. I think that you should still take pictures. I walk around a lot with a camera and take pictures of things that matter or moments. It’s like the picture captures what the moments and what it means. 

Class is almost over, I have to get ready to leave. I hope we have a good life.  
Sincerely,  
Timothy J. Drake”

Tim looked up from the letter. He was less cynic at eight, he still believed in heroes. He believed in heroes in a way that he can’t now. The first time he met Batman he was bitter and he didn’t seem much like a hero. Nightwing, he had spent half his life idolizing him to be rejected by him. Jason Todd the Robin he had spent nights chasing alongside Batman the first time he met him, he barely walked away from it. 

Heroes aren’t perfect. People, he found let him down and they thought he was crazy and he fought to make them believe him. Well, things are better now, at least. 

Eight year old Tim, seemed so simple. Of course he had no idea that he would become a vigilante or take down the League of Assassins. No, eight-year old Tim was worrying about getting into the right colleges and doing what would make his parents proud. It had taken a time to stop worrying about being the person his parents wanted him to be. He also had tried to earn Bruce’s approval. For years he was reminded that he wasn’t supposed to be Robin.

But he wasn’t going to let a little thing that like that get him down. He was a good Robin, he always tried his hardest. When he was a Teen Titan he never felt more apart and like he belonged. He had real friends, for once. Everything went south and somehow he lost a bit of himself every time he compromised. Eight year old Tim seemed to be so different than he remembered, he remembered being lonely he didn’t make friends easily, he read, took so many pictures, and he tried to get his parents to see him. They were so busy they never had time for him he’d always thought when he was an adult they would see him. Talk to him. 

It’s probably a good thing that eight year old Tim didn’t know he wouldn’t get the coveted approval from his parents or that he became Robin, Tim thought to himself as he folded the letter and placed it back in the shoe box. 


End file.
